Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), Lim­ma Mcleod Wilkin­son, is ques­tion­ing how Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der re­turned as PEP leader more than three months af­ter he re­signed.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Wilkin­son said there was no trans­paren­cy in Alexan­der’s re­sump­tion of his port­fo­lio. She fur­ther crit­i­cised him for fail­ing to host in­ter­nal elec­tions. “It’s very con­fus­ing be­cause as it is right now, an in­ter­nal elec­tion needs to be trans­par­ent. You need­ed to have ... like a reg­u­lar vot­ing sit­u­a­tion; you call out all your paid-up mem­bers and all your peo­ple who are sup­port­ers of the PEP who wish to be mem­bers, you give them the time to do it. You can’t have an in­ter­nal elec­tion to­day for to­day.”

Wilkin­son re­called that she, along­side two oth­er deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers—Maris­sa Per­sad and Ak­il Camps—be­came the head of the PEP two days af­ter Alexan­der re­signed. She said both Per­sad and Camps elect­ed her in­ter­im leader but the trio’s tenure last­ed one month af­ter she al­leged that they were blocked from ef­fect­ing changes with­in the par­ty.

She al­leged that they were not as­sist­ed by the chair or re­search of­fi­cer to cre­ate a con­sti­tu­tion or by-laws, and they could not get in­for­ma­tion on the par­ty’s fi­nances.

This is why she said they shelved po­lit­i­cal ac­tion with­in the PEP and stepped down from the ex­ec­u­tive in De­cem­ber.

How­ev­er, Alexan­der re­spond­ed to the com­ments about the par­ty’s fail­ure to host in­ter­nal elec­tions as ‘red her­rings’.

He al­so said his res­ig­na­tion was nul­li­fied af­ter he re­ceived re­lief from the le­gal bat­tles that ini­tial­ly prompt­ed him to step down.

“I had no in­ten­tion of com­ing back in­to pol­i­tics. I had stopped be­cause I want­ed to fo­cus on deal­ing with the on­slaught of le­gal mat­ters. But then the Ap­peal Court made a judg­ment that nul­li­fied a sig­nif­i­cant judg­ment against me and opened the door for all of the mat­ters now to just col­lapse on one an­oth­er. So that cre­at­ed an en­vi­ron­ment where the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty could ei­ther stay out of pol­i­tics or I could pick back up be­cause the deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers didn’t want it and the ex­ec­u­tive said we could just nul­li­fy your res­ig­na­tion.”

The PEP head went on to state his be­lief that no po­lit­i­cal par­ty hosts in­ter­nal polls in a gen­er­al elec­tion year.

“I ac­cept that some peo­ple would be con­cerned. At any point in time, we could have an in­ter­nal elec­tion but this is an elec­tion year and gen­er­al­ly, no po­lit­i­cal par­ty has an in­ter­nal elec­tion for po­lit­i­cal leader in an elec­tion year. We have to deal with it as it is,” he said.

Fur­ther­more, he said, at sev­en years old, the PEP is still young. Thus, he said it is not sur­pris­ing that there isn’t a con­sti­tu­tion.

As he reaf­firmed his sup­port for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Alexan­der said he hopes Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar make peace and form a coali­tion to chal­lenge the PNM.

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad does not be­lieve the PEP is poised to be of sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the Op­po­si­tion due to its cur­rent in­ter­nal strife. She said third par­ties have fash­ioned them­selves as ‘king­mak­ers’ where they unite with oth­er par­ties to un­seat a sit­ting gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, she said the PEP has enough trou­bles to oc­cu­py its time.

“You can­not be a leader with­out a par­ty, mean­ing that you’re a leader and your mem­bers are un­cer­tain as to what is go­ing on. There’s some lev­el of con­fu­sion so I think he has to sort that out first, es­tab­lish his lead­er­ship of the PEP be­fore he can think of join­ing the UNC,” she said.

On No­vem­ber 12, Alexan­der stepped down as the head of the PEP which he found­ed, for a sec­ond time.

It was due to his le­gal trou­bles, af­ter a court or­dered him to pay $850,000 to Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day in No­vem­ber 2023. A month pri­or, Alexan­der was or­dered to pay $525,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert. In 2019, he was or­dered to pay $775,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to busi­ness­man An­drew Gabriel. All three tri­als were about defama­tion. How­ev­er, in De­cem­ber last year, a court of ap­peal ruled that Gabriel should on­ly re­ceive $10,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.